The God of Love The musk-ox is accustomed to near-Arctic conditions. When danger threatens, these beasts cluster together to form a defensive wall, or a "porcupine", with the calves in the middle. – Dr Wolfgang Engelhart I found them between far hills, by a frozen lake. On a patch of bare ground. They were grouped In a solid ring, like an ark of horn. And around Them circled, slowly closing in, Their tongues lolling, their ears flattened against the wind,

A whirlpool of wolves. As I breathed, one fragment of bone and Muscle detached itself from the mass and Plunged. The pad of the pack slackened, as if A brooch had been loosened. But when the bull Returned to the herd, the revolving collar was tighter. And only The windward owl, uplifted on white wings In the glass of air, alert for her young, Soared high enough to look into the cleared centre And grasp the cause. To the slow brain Of each beast by the frozen lake what lay in the cradle of their crowned Heads of horn was a sort of god-head. Its brows Nudged when the arc was formed. Its need Was a delicate womb away from the iron collar

Of death, a cave in the ring of horn Their encircling flesh had backed with fur. That the collar of death Was the bone of their own skulls: that a softer womb Would open between far hills in a plunge Of bunched muscles: and that their immortal calf lay Dead on the snow with its horns dug into The ice for grass: they neither saw nor felt. And yet if That hill of fur could split and run – like a river Of ice in thaw, like a broken grave – It would crack across the icy crust of withdrawn Sustenance and the rigid circle Of death be shivered: the fed herd would entail its under-fur

On the swell of a soft hill and the future be sown On grass, I thought. But the herd fell By the bank of the lake on the plain, and the pack closed, And the ice remained. And I saw that the god In their ark of horn was a god of love, who made them die.

we started this #soapboxpoem series on #smallpoemsunday and I’m glad we’re going out on #twopageplustuesday — here is one of my very favorite poems, “The God of Love” by George MacBeth. thank you so much for reading this little series and I hope you enjoy MOUNTEBANK :) 🎭

[JE N'AY PLUS QUE LES OS] (RONSARD) I have nothing but bones now, am skeletonesque-Unfleshed, unnerved, unmuscled, pulpless, Struck down by Death's unforgiving arrow. I Don't dare look at my arms, lest they make me tremble with fear. Apollo and his son, two great masters, wouldn't together Know how to cure me; their craft has let me down. Goodbye, amiable sun; my eyes are stopped up with oakum, My body is descending to where it all comes apart. What friend who sees me at this spoiled point Won't return to their dwelling with sad, tearful eyes After consoling me in bed, kissing my face And wiping my eyes laid sleepward by Death? Goodbye, dear companions, goodbye my dear friends, I'm going first to prepare a place for you.

SYLVIA PLATH Surgeon at 2 a.m. The white light is artificial, and hygienic as heaven. The microbes cannot survive it. They are departing in their transparent garments, turned aside From the scalpels and the rubber hands. The scaled sheet is a snowfield, frozen and peaceful. The body under it is in my hands. As usual there is no face. A lump of Chinese white With seven holes thumbed in. The soul is another light. I have not seen it; it does not fly up. Tonight it has receded like a ship's light. It is a garden I have to do with - tubers and fruits Oozing their jammy substances, A mat of roots. My assistants hook them back. Stenches and colours assail me. This is the lung-tree. These orchids are splendid. They spot and coil like snakes. The heart is a red bell-bloom, in distress. I am so small In comparison to these organs! I worm and hack in a purple wilderness.

The blood is a sunset. I admire it. I am up to my elbows in it, red and squeaking. Still it seeps up, it is not exhausted. So magical! A hot spring I must seal off and let fill The intricate, blue piping under this pale marble. How I admire the Romans - Aqueducts, the Baths of Caracalla, the eagle nose! The body is a Roman thing. It has shut its mouth on the stone pill of repose. It is a statue the orderlies are wheeling off. I have perfected it. I am left with an arm or a leg, A set of teeth, or stones To rattle in a bottle and take home, And tissue in slices - a pathological salami. Tonight the parts are entombed in an icebox. Tomorrow they will swim In vinegar like saints' relics. Tomorrow the patient will have a clean, pink plastic limb. Over one bed in the ward, a small blue light Announces a new soul. The bed is blue. Tonight, for this person, blue is a beautiful colour. The angels of morphia have borne him up.

He floats an inch from the ceiling, Smelling the dawn draughts. I walk among sleepers in gauze sarcophagi. The red night lights are flat moons. They are dull with blood. I am the sun, in my white coat. Grey faces, shuttered by drugs, follow me like flowers.

one last #soapboxpoem catchup day before the last hurrah tomorrow — 29/31 my translation of a sonnet by Pierre de Ronsard, probably the single poem in MOUNTEBANK that means the most to me. & 30/31 an all-timer of a poem by Sylvia Plath, anthologized in Sick Verse

O lake, mute rocks, thick rushes, hidden caves, dark forest, You whom time spares or can rejuvenate, Beautiful nature, keep forevermore at least The memory of that night. Let it be in your slumber, and in your fierce storms, And in the features of your laughing banks, And in those dense black firs, and in that wild scarp That above your shoreline hangs. Let it be in the sounds that echo from your borders, In the fine spray your waves throw to the wind, And in the silver star that shines upon your waters And in their depths is twinned. Oh, may the plangent breeze, the softly sighing reeds, The balmy fragrance of the air above, May everything one sees, one hears, one feels, one breathes, May all proclaim: they loved!

Alphonse de Lamartine, translated by theoretical computer scientist Peter Shor

#soapboxpoem 28/31

Voir Il s’agit de voir Tellement plus clair, De faire avec les choses Comme la lumière.

To See It’s a question of seeing so much clearer, of doing to things what light does to them.

Guillevic, tr. Denise Levertov

#soapboxpoem 27/31

An untitled painting by Hedda Sterne. I’m colorblind so I’m not exactly sure of the color palette (it’s gray-adjacent but I think it has some blues, maybe pinks?), but it is a geometrical configuration that is approximately symmetrical across a thin black line down the middle of the canvas. On each left-right half there are three major shapes: an almost-rectangle trapezoid dominates the top third of each half, followed by a smaller, upside-down triangle in the middle third(ish), and lastly a right-side-up triangle at the bottom with some shading/laying that is suggestive of a pyramid. The shapes are textured and shaded in interesting ways, including several horizontal white lines reminiscent of foam atop oncoming waves.

& here we have the last #soapboxpoem entries to veer from the poem proper: 25/31 a painting by Hedda Sterne (Untitled, ca. 1987–1989), and 26/31 this song that needs no introduction: youtu.be/7cBf0olE9Yc

Hildegard of Bingen said that Adam could sing like an angel in Eden but after the fall, he lost his relationship to music and "his voice changed to typical male jeering and boyish laughter."

Concerning human foolishness and stubbornness O fool! Who am I? None other than the Supreme Good. Therefore I grant you all good things when you diligently seek Me. And whom do you believe Me to be? I am God, above all things and in all things, but you want to treat Me as a serf who fears his lord. How? You want Me to do your will, while you despise My precepts. God is not thus. What does this mean? He does not remember a beginning or fear an end. The heavens contemplate Me, resound with My praises, and obey Me in that justice by which I established them. The sun, moon, and stars appear among the clouds of Heaven on their proper course, and the blasts of the wind and the rain move through the air as is appointed for them, and all do the bidding of their Creator. But you, O human, do not fulfill My precepts, but follow your own will, as if for you the law's justice were neither established nor manifested. And although you are but ashes, you are in such a state of contumacy that the justice of My law does not suffice for you, though it is plowed and cultivated in the body and blood of My Son and well trodden out by My saints of the Old and New Testaments alike.

15 Everything indeed is for you, so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God. 16 o*Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 ₽For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 gas we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.

II 11 LoRD, show me your way; lead me on a level path because of my enemies. i 12 Do not abandon me to the will of my foes; malicious and lying witnesses have risen against me. 13 But I believe I shall enjoy the LoRD's goodness in the land of the living.j* 14 Wait for the LoRd, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the LoRD!

semi-chaotic catchup today with #soapboxpoem 22/31 (Hildegard von Bingen snippets), 23/31 (places in the Bible that are sometimes translated, though not here, as “Do not despair,”), & 24/31, which is a wonderful shadow-puppet version of Debussy’s La boîte à joujoux (The Toy Box) youtu.be/A1wd2z0Dqsk

DUCKS FOR GROWNUPS In the rain the white ducks picked up or took all the moonlight that was meant for water. No swans were needed. Ducks in the dark take all the light from the sky and all the underwater light and float between and dare you.

Jamie MacInnis

#soapboxpoem 21/31

I am the only one Can ride that horse, th'yonder I'm full of bees who died at sea It's a wonderful life It's a wonderful life I wore a rooster's blood When it flew like doves I'm a bog of poisoned frogs It's a wonderful life It's a wonderful life I'm the dog that ate your birthday cake It's a wonderful life It's a wonderful life It's a wonderful life

Harry Dean Stanton’s character in Inland Empire delivering the line, “I have seen dogs reason their way out of problems,”

The cover of the Sparklehorse album It’s a Wonderful Life

Harry Dean Stanton’s character in Inland Empire delivering the line, “I’ve got this damn landlord.”

& #soapboxpoem 19/31 + 20/31, a song by Mark Linkous (as Sparklehorse) and a couple snippets of Harry Dean Stanton’s performance in Inland Empire

Imagine a building divided into many rooms. The building may be large or small. Every wall of every room is covered with pictures of various sizes; perhaps they number many thousands. They represent in colour bits of nature-animals in sunlight or shadow, drinking, standing in water, lying on the grass; near to, a Crucifixion by a painter who does not believe in Christ; flowers; human figures sitting, standing, walking; often they are naked; many naked women, seen foreshortened from behind; apples and silver dishes; portrait of Councillor So and So; sunset; lady in red; flying duck; portrait of Lady X; flying geese; lady in white; calves in shadow flecked with brilliant yellow sunlight; portrait of Prince Y; lady in green. All this is carefully printed in a book-name of artist-name of picture. People with these books in their hands go from wall to wall, turning over pages, reading the names. Then they go away, neither richer nor poorer than when they came, and are absorbed at once in their business, which has nothing to do with art. Why did they come? In each picture is a whole lifetime imprisoned, a whole lifetime of fears, doubts, hopes, and joys.

a copy of Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky, translated by M. T. H. Sadler

& #soapboxpoem 17/31 + 18/31, a passage from Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky (tr. M. T. H. Sadler) accompanied by Sofia Gubaidulina’s Night in Memphis (performer credits in video description): youtu.be/qmNBRc8fDpY?...

Leave me alone For you know this isn't the first time In fact this is twice in a row That the angels have slipped through our landslide And filled up our garden with snow And I don't wish to taste of your insides Or to call out your name through my phone For the glory boys at your bedside will love you As long as you're something to own Follow me through a city of frost covered angels I swear I have nothing to prove I just want to dance in your tangles To give me some reason to move But to take on the world at all angles Requires a strength I can't use So I'll meet you up high in your anger Of all that is hoping and waiting for you

BOOK XII THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, THE CATTLE OF THE SUN. “After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into the open sea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there is dawn and sun-rise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to the sands and got out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep and waited till day should break. “Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I sent some men to Circe’s house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut firewood from a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and after we had wept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral rites. When his body and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised a cairn, set a stone over it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the oar that he had been used to row with.

& catching up with #soapboxpoem 15/31 & 16/31, from “Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone” by Neutral Milk Hotel and from The Odyssey in Samuel Butler’s prose translation

he came to his father and mother, he gave them some to eat, without telling them that he had scooped the honey from the lion's carcass. 10 His father also went down to the woman, and Samson gave a banquet there, since it was customary for the young men to do this. 11 When they met him, they brought thirty men to be his companions.* 12 Samson said to them, "Let me propose a riddle to you. If within the seven days of the feast you solve it for me successfully, I will give you thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of garments. 13 But if you cannot answer it for me, you must give me thirty tunics and thirty sets of garments. 11 *Propose your riddle, they responded; "we will listen to it." 14 So he said to them, “Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness."

Tied a string to the bullet So I could pull it back Through the flower’s head Make a trophy necklace Threaded with petals & honey-colored light. White Sheets in the mausoleum Are mostly for show… (poem continues outside of the scope of the picture)

& #soapboxpoem 14/31, for the 14th day of March — Judges 14:14, plus a snippet of my poem “Out of the Strong” in MOUNTEBANK

28. ‘Feminine silver burns’ How the feminine silver burns that fought with oxidation and alloy! Quiet work silvers the iron plough and the voice of the poet. [beginning of 1937]

The trees walk backwards into the dark. * * * Hello? Hello? The snow comes in sobs. Dogs sob. Cars sob across town. Dear Circus, When you found me I was a rickety house.

& catching up again with #soapboxpoem 12/31 and 13/31, by Osip Mandelstam (trs. the McKanes) & Kate Kilalea, respectively

The Countess from Minneapolis by Barbara Guest

34 And still she said, walking toward Crocus Hill Market, one desires to live. I wish there were wishes and not lists. I wish vegetables were grown by heart and artichokes would heal, I wish this rhythm of my approaching the butcher were more than a knuckle attaching itself to me perhaps a crocus, a root of limited possibilities, yet promising a livelihood.

& #soapboxpoem 11/31: one by Barbara Guest from The Countess in Minneapolis. “I wish there / were wishes and not lists.”

The Two-headed Calf Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum. But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

🕯️ Kristi showed me the Two-headed calf on TikTok No news is good news

& #soapboxpoem 10/31, a stone-cold classic by Laura Gilpin. I’ve borrowed a lot from this poem (cf. the end of my poem “NOVENA” below), and it always makes me think about how Gilpin worked as a nurse all her life, caring for the sick and publishing two books of poetry, one posthumously~

A photograph by Eugen Bavcar

Another photograph by Eugen Bavcar

— ‘Monsieur the Chaplain, hurry now! the organ’s roaring, the canons are chanting, hurry, the faithful are gathered and you still at table! — There’s the third peal of bells for midnight mass!’ The little children blew on their fingers, but they’d not long to wait, and on the Gothic threshold, white with snow, the chaplain gave them each, in the name of the masters of the house, a griddle-cake and a silver coin. Now the bells no longer rang. The good lady plunged her arms up to her elbows in a muff, the noble sire smothered his ears beneath his cap of state, and the humble priest, in his hooded shoulder-cape, walked behind them, his missal under his arm.

And as the rain trickles down, the little Black Forest charcoal-burners, from their bed of fragrant fern, hear the wind howling outside like a wolf. They pity the fugitive doe buffeted by the blows of the storm, and pity the squirrel lurking in the hollow of an old oak-tree, as fearful of the lightning as of the deer-stalker’s lamp. They pity the plight of birds, of the wagtail with only her wing to shelter her brood, and the robin whose great love, the briar-rose, is culled by the wind. They pity even the glowworm that a drop of rain flings into the water from some mossy branch. They pity the pilgrim, journeying late, who meets King Pialus and Queen Wilberta, for it’s the hour when the king takes his palfrey of mist to drink by the Rhine. But they pity, above all, the children who enter perhaps on a narrow path made by a band of thieves, or stumble towards the ogress’ distant light. And next day, at dawn, the little charcoal-burners will find their hut made of branches, from which they hunt thrushes, flat on the grass, and find their basket of lime drowned in the spring.

getting caught up with #soapboxpoem 8/31 and 9/31! some of the soapbox poems aren’t poems — such as these photographs by Eugen Bavcar, accompanied by a couple snippets from Gaspard de la nuit by Aloysius Bertrand, translated here by A. S. Kline~

For the Faint of Heart When you return from the asylum be sure to gaze at the trees covered in snow. When the train enters the tunnel ask the waiter for tea with milk. When in darkness take seriously the lesson of fluttering hands. If it is offered take the class they call Ornithography, for it will teach you something about love. On the subject of love I have only a single observation— if you love a grapefruit, you cut it open and eat its flesh. Take my advice. Take it home to the your husband or wife. Slip into bed. Turn off the lights.

For the Faint of Heart When you return from the asylum be sure to gaze at the trees covered in snow. When the train enters the forest, ask the waiter for tea with milk. In the dark take seriously the lesson of fluttering hands. If it is offered take the class they call Ornithography, for it will surely teach you something about love. On the subject of love I have only a single observation— if you love a grapefruit you cut it open and eat its flesh. Take my advice. Take it home to the ghost you love. Slip into bed. Snuff out the lights.

& #soapboxpoem 7/31: “For the Faint of Heart” by Ben Mirov. I learned so much from the way this poem was revised between its initial publication and its collection in book form—give both versions a read and see what differences you notice: augurybooks.com/2-poems-by-b...

You walk down alameda shuffling your deck of trick cards over everyone Like some precious only son Face down, bow to the champion You walk down alameda looking at the cracks in the sidewalk Thinking about your friends How you maintain all them in a constant state of suspense For your own protection over their affection Nobody broke your heart You broke your own because you can't finish what you start Walk down alameda brushing off the nightmares you wish Could plague me when I'm awake And now you see your first mistake was thinking that you could relate

For one or two minutes she liked you But the fix is in You're all pretension I never pay attention Nobody broke your heart You broke your own because you can't finish what you start Nobody broke your heart You broke your own because you can't finish what you start Nobody broke your heart You broke your own because you can't finish what you start Nobody broke your heart If you're alone it must be you that wants to be apart

& #soapboxpoem 6/31: “Alameda” by Elliott Smith

PAUL KLEE, 1879-1940 Water Water, topped by waves, topped by a boat, topped by a woman, topped by a man. Harriet Watts

3 I must be saved. By succeeding?

LAST THINGS LAST In the heart’s centre the only prayers are steps receding

Redgreen and Violet-Yellow Rhythms by Paul Klee

& #soapboxpoem 5/31: Paul Klee, in translations by Harriet Watts (“Water”) & Anselm Hollo (the other two). Included also is a painting of Klee’s I quite love that lends its title to a poem in MOUNTEBANK

The web page http://www.librarius.com/cantales_dm.htm

The executioner three times her smote Upon the neck, and could not strike again, Although he failed to cut in two her throat, For at that time the ordinance was plain That no man might another give the pain Of striking four blows, whether soft or sore; This executioner dared do no more. But half dead, with her neck cut three times there, He let her lie, and on his way he went. The Christian folk that all about her were, With sheets caught up the precious blood she spent; And three days lived she in this same torment, But never ceased at all the faith to teach, That she had fostered; dying did she preach;

To them she gave her goods and everything, And of Pope Urban put them in the care, And said: "This much I asked of Heaven's King, A respite of three days, that you might share With me these souls; and too I would prepare Before I go my house a church to make, That it be kept forever for my sake." Saint Urban, with his deacons, privately, The body took and buried it by night Among his other saints, right honourably. Her house is Church of Saint Cecilia hight; Saint Urban hallowed it, as well he might; Wherein in noble wise unto this day To Christ and to his saint men service pay.

& #soapboxpoem 4/31: from Chaucer, the Second Nun’s Tale about Saint Cecilia, who survives three blows from the executioner and lives for three more days.

A copy of The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans by St. Geraud, né Bill Knott.

WIDOWER’S WINTER Outside, the snow is falling into its past... I do want this night to end. In the fireplace, a section of ash caves in. The fall day you were buried, birds went over, south, thick enough to carry someone. They took my gapes of breath. -Their fuel? We are together in some birds, who fail. I didn't even want to look at your grave, its heroic little mound like the peck of dirt we hope to eat in our life.

LIFER (AKA "HAPPY BIRTHDAY'') our prisoner has received a package containing a cake which of course he thinks must conceal a file or a hacksaw-blade and starts to dig down into toolorate. Get our swing with icicles for actually however his salvation his way out his escape route has been carefully laid out in brightcolored frosting over darker frosting the crucial message the delicate pinkly lettering overlooked unheeded falls shredded apart now by his hopeful search

& #soapboxpoem 3/31: two poems by Bill Knott. Bill Knott went entirely his own way, and I admire so much how he made his work available toward the end of his life with handmade books, free PDFs on his website, and YouTube videos of him reading his work that are still up to watch.

El Desdichado I am the shadowed-the bereaved—the unconsoled, The Aquitainian prince of the stricken tower: My one star's dead, and my constellated lute Bears the Black Sun of Melancholia. You who consoled me, in the tombstone night, Bring back my Posilipo, the Italian sea, The flower that so pleased my wasted heart, And the arbour where the vine and rose agree. Am I Love or Apollo? ... Lusignan or Biron? My brow is red still from the kiss of the queen; I've dreamed in the cavern where the siren swims... And twice a conqueror have crossed Acheron: Modulating on the Orphic lyre in turn The sighs of the saint, and the fairy's screams.

…features and sparkling eyes vanished into a shadow where still shone the last gleam of a smile... Such was that vision, or such at least the main details I can remember. The cataleptic state in which I had been for some days was explained away to me in scientific terms, and the remarks of those who had seen me then irritated me when I realized that they attributed to mental aberration my actions and words which coincided with the various phases of what were for me a series of logical events. But I felt a greater affection than ever for those of my friends who, from kindness or patience, or because of a set of ideas similar to mine, made me give long accounts of the things I had seen in my mind. With tears in his eyes, one of them said to me: "Is it not true there is a God?" "Yes!" I answered enthusiastically. And we embraced each other, like two brothers of that mystic country I had half-seen. What happiness I found at first in that belief! For thus the eternal doubt about the immortality of the soul, which troubles the greatest minds, had been solved for me. No more death, no more sadness, no more cares. My loved ones, relatives, and friends, had given convincing proof of their eternal existence, and I was only separated from them by the hours of the day. I waited for the hours of the night with a gentle melancholy.

& #soapboxpoem 2/31: a poem & some prose by Gérard de Nerval (trs. Peter Jay & Geoffrey Wagner, resp.). I’m 32 right now, the year when Nerval started to experience his episodes. Coming out of them, and seeing a friend, was like finding “the arbour where the vine and rose agree.”

Sea-clouds, the bodies of waves The whole huge part Of the world that has always been Silent The stone inspired nothing All who see it Even hear of it Will have to die And there is no time to talk about it Once the laughing starts

here’s #soapboxpoem 1/31: the ending of “The Laughing Stone” by Mark Kirschen, which is the closing poem of his phenomenal book Pier’s End. The poem is based on the legend of a stone that, once a viewer looks at it, causes them to laugh without stopping, and only the humorless are immune. 😂🪨

…word MOUNTEBANK (from the Italian montambanco, “quack who mounts a bench to hawk his wares” contracted from monta-in-banco, “mount on bench” like the guys who would jump up on benches or boxes to sell snake oil in the public marketplace.) The first #soapboxpoem follows below :) but before that…

The cover of MOUNTEBANK by Tom Snarsky, out March 31st from Broken Sleep Books.

hello everyone! today is #smallpoemsunday and it’s also the first day of March, the month at the end of which my new book MOUNTEBANK will be out from @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social :)

each day in March I’m planning to share a #soapboxpoem, a small series of poems(/etc.) named for the origin of the…